Sermon Tone Analysis

*The Passion of Jesus Christ*

*Good Friday, April 9, 2004*

* *

*Introduction:*

 

*/BreakPoint, April 8, 2004, cultural commentary with Prison Fellowship's Chuck Colson/*

*/Fiery Darts Are Backfiring - Showing The Passion in the Middle East/*

/ /

/Surprisingly, theaters in Doha, Qatar, and Amman, Jordan, are showing The Passion of the Christ.

A Qatari English-language newspaper, The Peninsula, headlines, “Passion runs full house.”

On March 21 three theaters in Doha were sold-out and pre-booked for days ahead.

An official of the Qatar Cinema and Film Distribution Board boasts that Qatar is so open that no film was refused permission for showing there last year and that the distributor was amazed when Qatar requested The Passion.

Censors okayed it without any cuts, and the official expects the film to run for at least two months./

/ /

/And some mullahs are encouraging their Muslim followers to see the film.

Why such an unexpected endorsement?

The false rumors that the film is anti-Semitic have reached the mullahs, and as one missionary explains, “since they hate the Jews, they want to see it.”

Muslims recognize Jesus as a prophet, and although they believe Muhammad superseded Him, they still revere and respect Christ.

So when they hear of a film which is alleged to show Jews crucifying Christ, some Muslims welcome the opportunity to revel in a depiction of the wickedness of their long-time enemies./

/ /

/But many Muslims are responding to the film in ways their mullahs hadn’t intended.

One viewer recognized, “When they show a story of the Romans . . . in ancient times, it doesn’t mean the present-day Italians are responsible.”

By analogy, he reasoned that, even if he construed the film as depicting first-century Jews as instigators of Christ’s crucifixion, that would not be an indictment of modern Israelis./

/ /

/An even more important consequence shows up in an e-mail from a missionary, who marvels, “In two short hours more Qataris heard the Gospel than I have been able to reach in nearly five years living here.

At the 7:30 p.m.  and 9:30 p.m.  showings, the film was running in all three theaters.”

He estimated that more than 50 percent of the people in the theater were local Muslims—including completely veiled women./

/ /

/After viewing the film with a former student, he told him in Arabic, “You think that this film is here because of ‘freedom of speech’ or the new openness of your government, but actually God Himself has sent this film to correct your total misunderstanding about who Jesus is and why He came to earth.”

For two hours, the missionary and the student discussed the differences between Islam and Christianity, and the cross—the heart of our message./

/ /

/The missionary adds, “How interesting that God is using this film to communicate the Gospel [in] the very opposite spirit that might be motivating [Muslims] to see it.

The message to love your enemies, and Jesus’ praying for them to be forgiven while on the cross, would hit the Muslim moviegoer in a powerful way.”/

/ /

/With theaters in Jordan and Qatar scheduled to show the film for at least two months, and with videos and DVDs selling briskly, the potential is staggering./

/ /

/Isn’t God amazing?

He is using charges of anti-Semitism to stimulate Muslim mullahs to encourage their followers to see a Christian film during Holy Week—in essence, to make fiery darts backfire.

/

 

 

God’s purposes, plans and abilities are indeed amazing.

He can even take human sin and controversy and use it for his glory in a way that makes you think he planned this all along and in a way that makes you marvel at his ways.

We have been hearing all along about this great controversy surrounding the film, The Passion of the Christ, by Mel Gibson – whether it is anti-Semitic, whether it promotes a hidden and subversive view that the Jews alone are responsible for the killing of Christ, not thinking that this could be a plan of God to reach Muslims.

But we need to sharpen our understanding of this plan of God even further.

Some common responses to the question of who was responsible for the death of Christ are that it was not the Jews who killed Christ but the Romans since it was a Roman cross and Pilate could have stopped it if he had the courage, or that we all as sinners past, present, and future are responsible for the death of Christ.

But the answer to this question still has not been taken to its logical and biblical extension.

In a book written by John Piper, The Passion of Jesus Christ, out just in time for this Easter season, he homes in on the final verdict I have already hinted at.

“Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.”

(Isaiah 53:10 NIVUS)

 

 “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all— how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”

(Romans 8:32 NIVUS)

 

 “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.

He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—” (Romans 3:25 NIVUS)

 

So we see that the real answer to the question is that God himself is responsible for the death of his Son.

He used what he knew wicked men would do and turn it into the ultimate act of goodliness and godliness.

It was for the good of mankind.

The death of Christ was the plan of God to reach the world.

“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

(Genesis 50:20 NIVUS)

 

So we must move beyond the question of human cause to the understanding of divine purpose.

Man may have many reasons for wanting Jesus dead, but only God can design it for the good of the world.

God’s purposes for the world in the death of Christ are unfathomable.

This takes us to what passion is all about.

Christ had an unfathomable passion for the purpose of God in his death for the salvation of the world.

What would the world be without passion?

We associate at least four things with the word /passion/: sexual desire, zeal for a task, an oratorio by J. S. Bach, and the sufferings of Jesus Christ.

The word comes from a Latin word meaning /suffering/.

It deepens sex, enables great works, inspires music, and carries forward the greatest cause in the world.

The passion of Christ was unique because it was more than mere human passion.

As the Nicene Creed says, he was “very God of very God.”

He pursued his passion not only by the will of God but also by his own authority.

“The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life— only to take it up again.

No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.

This command I received from my Father."”

(John 10:17-18 NIVUS)

 

The controversy about who killed Jesus is marginal.

He /chose/ to die.

His Father ordained it.

He embraced it – with passion.

And his passion was vindicated by the resurrection.

This was all the work of God.

But what more can we learn about the purpose behind the passion of Christ to die for the sins of the world, a passion driven by love for fallen mankind?

What did God achieve for sinners like us in sending his Son to die?

 

John Piper in his book gives fifty reasons why Christ suffered and died for us.

This is not fifty causes, but fifty reasons or purposes.

I won’t elaborate on all fifty reasons tonight, but I will on a good number of them.

If I have time, I will at least let you know what all fifty reasons are so you can get a better feel for the universal breadth of God’s purpose.

As you worship Christ and revere his sacrifice on the cross for your sins this Good Friday, be amazed and overwhelmed with gratitude at why he did it and what it accomplished for you.

*/Gratitude/*

/ /

/Pastor Victor Shepherd tells the story of a missionary surgeon he met who was rather gruff and to the point.

On one occasion the surgeon was speaking to a small group of university students about his work in the Gaza Strip.

He was telling us that we North American "fat cats" knew nothing about gratitude.

Nothing!

On one occasion he had stopped a peasant hovel to see a/

/woman on whom he had performed surgery.

She and her husband were dirt poor.

Their livestock supply consisted of one angora rabbit and two chickens.

For income the woman combed the hair out of the rabbit, spun the hair into yarn and sold it.

For food she and her husband ate the eggs from the chickens.

The woman insisted that the missionary surgeon stay for lunch.

He accepted the invitation and said he would be back for lunch after he had gone down/

/the road to see another postoperative patient.

An hour and a half later he was back.

He peeked into the cooking pot to see what he was going to eat.

He saw one rabbit and two chickens.

The woman had given up her entire livestock supply--her income, her food, everything.

He concluded his story by reminding us that we knew nothing of gratitude.

He wept unashamedly.

The incident will stay with me forever./

/Victor Shepherd, Preacher's Annual 1992, Nashville: Abingdon p. 122./

 

 

*/Christ suffered and died/**/ ---/*